Aku Aku Mask-Crash Bandicoot

Following on from my last build I decided to keep practicing more with using EVA foam as a prop making material, I was commissioned to make a replica of Aku Aku, a character from the game franchise Crash Bandicoot.

After drawing up templates the shapes were transferred to EVA Foam and cut out, the pieces were then rounded and smoothed using a dremel with a sanding drum attachment and then finished off with 400 grit sandpaper.

The next step was adding the wood grain texture to the pieces, I drew out a basic texture using a black rollerball pen so that I didn't indent the foam and could draw with a nice thin line unlike a sharpie. The lines were lightly scored using a scalpel and then hit with a heat gun to open them up. For they eyes I made clear plastic copies using worbla's transpa art.

At this point the foam was sealed with 4  thin coats of white plastidip, using white left me with a good base for the colours and once the white was dry I masked off the facial features so they could be painted.  

I used a few different paints for the colours on the mask, I used red plastidip for the brows, nose and lips. The eye bags were painted by hand using acrylic and the wood was painted using spraypaint. I wanted to use a variety to see how they worked with foam (this was tested on scraps first!) The spray paint was flexible but not to the same degree as the acrylic, it worked fine for this project but if I were to paint something that would be being flexed repeatedly I would opt to use a latex paint. 

The eyes were painted on the inside using acrylics, I gradiated from red to yellow to give a warm glow, this was done by stippling the colours inside to give a rougher finish as airbrushing the colours I felt would have looked too clean and perfect for the characters appearance. 

The final step was detailing, using acrylic washes I built up grime to seep into the grain of the pieces and dull the bright colours down a little to make him a little more realistic. Light dry brushing was applied in certain areas to bring the colour back through, at this point the eye lenses were attached along with the feathers and his goatee which was made from an artificial leaf.

Gotham By Gaslight Project: Part Four-Cowl

For the cowl I needed to create a leather/fabric look similar to the Gotham by gaslight design. The dominantly used method for bat cowls is a clay sculpt and a latex/urethane pull. My sculpting skills aren't quite up to the level for a realistic leather textured sculpt, and that would require a quality sulphur free clay, silicone and fiberglass for the mould and urethane to create a casting which would make the build an extremely expensive and time consuming  process. This project needed to be done to a smaller budget so I decided to base my build method around the process used on the 1966 batman cowl. The 66 cowl used a fiberglass shell wrapped in stretch satin. My method would be a variation on this idea. 

The base for my build was a polystyrene mannequin head, the head measured in at 23", same as the actors head. I borrowed techniques from the talented kamui cosplay who was the person I discovered and learnt the basics of worbla from. I wrapped the head in cling film and then covered one side of the head in masking tape, I only needed half since this is a symmetrical build and the cling film prevented the tape from sticking to the polystyrene head.   

Once I had covered the form I roughly sketched out the shape I wanted and cut it out.

Darts were cut into the piece so that it could lay flat so that I could transfer the pattern to card stock.

I went through about three versions at the card stage, I took away a lot of the curve at the back of the head to make the final piece easier to put on, I also added another inch into the pattern size to make room for padding.

A final test fit, looking more like a Tron helmet than a bat cowl at this point. The face section I decided to do as a separate piece so that I didn't over complicate my patterns.

 The final pattern transferred to Worbla and cut out, I used a craft knife to cut my pieces out but a good pair of sharp scissors would do just as well. 

The head form was wrapped in tin foil to protect the head from the heat gun and and then a layer of cling film as a barrier between the form and the worbla as worbla sticks to anything when heated.

One side formed, the material holds its shape very well considering how thin it is, this would be due to the wood pulp trapped inside the thermoplastic. Worbla is very flexible and cosplayers who use the material often strengthen it by sandwiching two layers of worbla over a filling of sheet craft foam. I need something a little more rigid as this is not a piece of armour made to wrap around a body and flex with it, it needs to hold its shape.

Since worbla sticks to itself there was no need for glue, both halves fused together and became a single piece, any mistakes and the worbla can be reheated over and over until you get the shape you want.

To strengthen the piece I thinned bondo in resin and slush cast a layer inside the form, I then spent 2 days filling and sanding the outside of the fro mto get it nice and smooth, the worbla was an quick and lightweight hollow frame for me to build on as I only needed one cowl so there was no need to sculpt a solid master and mould it.

The face section began as a flat piece of worbla, I line it up with the centre of the head form and used pins to keep the piece lined up to make sure it was symmetrical. I gradually heated and shaped the sheet around each of the facial features and pushed the excess material into small folds over the cheeks, these were then cut off and the resulting seam was heated and stuck together. 

Overlaying the main head piece I made I marked out the cut lines for the face area, leaving a lip of extra material to use to bond it to the main head form. 

The nose was patterned in card and then the card form was wrapped in worbla, heated and then pressed into place.

The face piece was glued in place and then filler was added to blend the face section into the rest of the head.

I drew out one eye, cut it out using a dremel with an assortment of bits and then checked the sizing to make sure there was good visibility, one of the advantages of making a mask piece hollow at the start. once I was happy I traced the eye and made a stencil from paper to transfer it to the other side. Once both were cut out a dremel with a sanding drum attachment was sued to round out the corners and then the edges were hand sanded down. I used my dremel's sanding drum again to equalize the thickness of the lips on the eye holes this was done from the inside and some final shaping by hand with sandpaper.

The ears were made as concave shapes, a little different to the usual movie cowls but this adds to the wet moulded leather look and also gives them a slightly stronger resemblance to actual bat ears, these were made as thin worbla pieces and will be wrapped in the fabric I decide to use.

The ears were heated over a metal ruler to angle them and then the base was heated and pressed onto the cowl to give it the same curve. Worbla stays workable for a while after it is heated so make sure the part has cooled before you start working on another area of the same piece, otherwise you'll ruin the shape you just made!

I drilled holes into the pieces so that I could relocate them back in the same place once both the pieces were wrapped in material. I will use rivets/screws to permanently attach the ears once they are covered.

The cowl shell was tweaked a little bit at this stage, I decided to give the nose a more hooked, gargoyle look, the whole piece was given a coat of primer to neaten it up ready for padding to fit the actor.

For padding I hot glued scrap black cotton onto pieces of 1.5cm thick foam, a pad was hot glued onto the top of the head and a thin strip was also glued to the back of the head, this was to correct the eye level of the actor looking out of the mask and to push the face of the mask closer to the actors own face. After test fitting the cowl fit well and was ready to be 

patterned over to create the fabric covering.

Gotham By Gaslight Project: Part Three-Belt Buckle

The buckle for the utility belt was heavily based on Boer war belt buckles to give the design a functional and period accurate design. The idea behind the detailing is that this piece is a found item that has been adapted for the main characters use. The piece has been detailed to look like a police officers belt which also links to the characters sense of justice and order.

I used multiple photographs of actual Boer War buckles photographed on top of a ruler to create 1:1 scale technical drawings in Illustrator.

I separated each piece into a separate drawing and imported them from Illustrator into Solidworks. Each piece was extruded and detailed with textures and filleted edges.

A quick render of the grubby brass finish I will try to create with the finished pieces. I originally wanted to have these pieces 3D printed in actual brass because it would be much stronger than plastic and would have a much more realistic finish. However after receiving a quote back I found this wasn't a cost effective option so I will instead be printing the buckle in plastic and painting it to look like dirty brass.

I received my 3D printed parts, unlike the last time I  had something 3D printed I opted to have the item "polished" so that it would be smoother, even though it was slightly smoother there was still an obvious texture to the piece so I took to smoothing the surface with spot filler and various grades of sandpaper.

 The pieces were given their usual coats of primer and wet-sanded from 600 grit upping grits  to 1200.

But then disaster hit when my nicely smoothed surfaces became a mottled brass mess. My test piece with the brass paint had come out nice and smooth but for unknown reasons this time it did not react well, this brand was a recommendation I found online but I did have a similar colour I had used before. So after waiting patiently for the paint to cure I stripped it all back down and repainted.

Much nicer!

After a few layers of acrylic wash to give it a bit of grime the buckle was given two coats of lacquer and it was done!

Gotham By Gaslight Project: Part two-Throwing Knives

One of the simpler pieces for this project were the throwing knives, these were needed to go onto Batman's utility belt and to be used as set dressing for other scenes. I decided to make these from Sintra since it is lightweight and has some flex.

The throwing knives were drawn out using a template made in Illustrator and cut out using a craft knife. My first plan was to have these knives cut out using a laser cutter, but after a little research online I found that foam PVC didn't agree with laser cutting so I cut them out as symmetrically as I could by hand.

Each knife was primed and given a little spot filler to smooth out the slightly textured surface of sintra.

To create the bevel I cut away the outer edge of the blade and then remade the tip from 0.5mm styrene. This acted as a guide so that I could fill the step between the sintra and styrene with filler to give me a quick and clean bevelled edge.

Each knife was then given its six coats of primer and wet-sanded ready for painting.

 

The Blades were painted flat black

The blades were dry-brushed with acrylic, starting with grey and working up to a bright silver. After these layers had dried fully they were given two coats of lacquer to protect the metal effect. The last layer was another thin coat of flat black, this was lightly worn away around the edges with some 1500 grit sandpaper and the knives were finished!